CNET News Video

Elon Musk reveals grand plan to colonize Mars​

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ​unveils his ambitious plan to inhabit Mars and shows a concept video of the interplanetary transport system he's designing for the mission.

3:17 / September 27, 2016

Transcript

[MUSIC]
[NOISE] There are really two fundamental parts.
History is going to bifurcate along two direction One path is we stay on Earth forever and then there will be some eventual extinction event.
I don't have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually history suggests there will be some grisly event.
The alternative is to become a space bearing civilization and a multi-planet species Which I hope you would agree, that is the right way to go.
Yes?
[APPLAUSE]
So how do we figure out how to take you to Mars?
This is an actual scale of what the solar system looks like.
So we're currently in the third little rock from the left That's Earth and our goal is to go to the fourth rock on the left and that's Mars.
And if we get the cost of moving to Mars to roughly equivalent to a median house price in the US which is around $200,000 Then I think the probability of establishing a self-sustaining civilization is very high.
I think it would almost certainly occur.
Not everyone would want to go.
In fact, I think a relatively small number of people from earth would want to go.
But enough would want to go and who could afford the trip that it would happen.
These are the key elements that are needed in order to Achieve a four and a half order of magnitude improvement.
Most of the improvement would come from full reusability, somewhere between two and two and half orders of magnitude.
And then other two orders of magnitude would come from refilling in orbit, propellant production on Mars, and choosing the right propellant.
And then the propellant tanker goes up.
Actually, it will go up multiple times, anywhere from three to five times to fill the tanks of the spaceship in orbit.
And then once the spaceship tanks are full, the cargo's been transferred, and we reach the Mars Rendezvous timing, which, as mentioned, is probably every 26 months.
This is to give you a sense of size,
[BLANK_AUDIO]
So it's quite big.
[LAUGH]
[APPLAUSE]
[APPLAUSE]
The funny thing is Danny, in the long term, the strips will be even bigger than this.
I think, this will be relatively small compared to the Mars interplanetary ships of the future

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